Booknotes – WBJC: Recent Episodes
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Image courtesy of Simon & Schuster
You know Claire McCardell through ballet flats, mix-and-match separates, pockets, zippers, leggings, and more, yet she remains the most influential fashion designer you’ve never heard of. Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson has set out to change that with her book, Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free.
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The Opposite of Cruelty, newly released by Blair Publishing, is the second poetry collection from Steven Leyva. It was an enormous pleasure to catch up with an old MFA alum.
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Annie Fullard, Director of Chamber Music at Peabody Conservatory and founding member of the Cavani String Quartet, along with Dorianne Cotter-Lockard, who is on the faculty at Saybrook University and consults in the areas of team collaboration and music education, have published a book called The Art of Collaboration: Chamber Music Rehearsal Techniques and Team Building, published by Oxford University Press. They’re my guests on BookNotes this month.
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Hiram Larew, who generously underwrites BookNotes through his Cynipid Fund, is out with his seventh poetry collection, This Much Very, published by Alien Buddha Press. I spoke with Hiram by phone.
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Image: www.bancroftpress.com
Amy L. Bernstein—novelist, journalist, speechwriter, playwright, poet, and writing coach—has written a book about that insidious feeling that plagues all creatives: Doubt. I talked to her about wrangling the monster.
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Cover image credit: “Faraway Tables” by Gene McCormick
Fiction and travel writer Eric D. Goodman is out with his first poetry collection: Faraway Tables. He’s my first guest on BookNotes for 2025.
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Image: Barrelhouse website
Tracy Dimond is following up the publication of four chapbooks of poetry with her first full-length poetry collection, Emotion Industry. She’s my guest on BookNotes this month.
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Portuguese Jews and New Christians in Colonial Brazil, 1500-1822: A New Geography of the Atlantic World is the title of the new book being published this month by geographer Alan Marcus. I spoke to him for BookNotes.
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Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur
Maurycy Gottlieb, 1878
Tel Aviv Museum of Art
The month of October is rich with days of observance on the Jewish calendar, including the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, and the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. I spoke with poet, Robbie Nester, about the significance of Jewish poetry in this context.
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Award-winning dramaturg, playwright, and novelist James Magruder is coming out with his first nonfiction work, The Play’s the Thing: Fifty Years of Yale Repertory Theatre (1966-2016). I spoke to Jim for BookNotes.
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A collection of poetry inspired by art, titled Liminal Spaces, is a product of the Arts Lab of South County, Maryland, and its publication has been supported by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council. The editor of the collection is the writer and educator, Nancy Murray.
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Book cover from publisher website: spuytenduyvil.net
Antje Rauwerda is a Professor of British and Postcolonial Literatures at Goucher College, and she published a novel with Spuyten Duyvil earlier this year called Slow Time. I spoke to Antje for BookNotes.
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When the Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-DayGarrett M. Graff*On Call: A Doctor’s JourneyDr. Anthony Fauci**The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family MemoirGriffin Dunne**The Uptown Local: Joy, Death, and Joan DidionCory Leadbeater**The Glass MakerTracy Chevalier*http://www.wbjc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/BNR-June-2024.mp3
A Point of Beauty: TRUE STORIES OF HOLDING ON AND LETTING GO is the 5th book from The Moth, which is dedicated to the art and craft of unscripted, first-person storytelling. Their latest iteration includes a story from the violinist, Frank Almond, who is perhaps more famous than he would like for having had his Stradivarius stolen after being attacked with a taser.
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Last June, The Walters Art Museum inaugurated a new exhibition space to introduce rare books and manuscripts added to the Walters permanent collection in recent years, many of which have never been on view. I invited Lynley Anne Herbert, the Robert and Nancy Hall Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, into the BookNotes studio to talk about the project.
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Knife: Meditations After an Attempted MurderSalmon RushdieThe Demon of Unrest:A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroismat the Dawn of the Civil WarErik LarsonThe Backyard Bird ChroniclesAmy TanThe Cemetery of Untold StoriesJulia AlvarezTable for TwoAmor Towleshttp://www.wbjc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BNR-April-2024.mp3
Danielle Ariano’s memoir, The Requirement of Grief, is a poignant and muscular account of the relationship between two sisters—and the bond that remains in the wake of a suicide. I’ll be in conversation with Danielle for the launch of her memoir at The Ivy Bookshop at 4pm on Sunday, April 21st. Here is a preview.
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Until AugustGabriel García MárquezAfter AnnieAnna QuindlenH Is for HopeCLIMATE CHANGE FROM A TO ZElizabeth KolbertOne Way Back: A MemoirChristine Blasey Fordhttp://www.wbjc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/BNR-March-2024.mp3
Author, podcaster, publicist, and teacher, Ben Tanzer, is out with his latest novel, The Missing, from 7.13 Books. It was my pleasure to catch up with Ben by phone from Chicago.
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Medgar & Myrlie:Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened AmericaJoy-Ann ReidNormal Women:Nine Hundred Years of Making HistoryPhilippa GregoryWandering StarsTommy OrangeFourteen DaysThe Authors Guild, Margaret Atwood, Douglas Prestonhttp://www.wbjc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/BNR-February-2024.mp3
The poet and speechwriter, Terry Edmonds, whose latest collection is Question Marks published by DARKLIGHT PUBLISHING, has had a life journey from the projects in Baltimore, to being chief speechwriter for President Bill Clinton, and beyond. I invited him to be my guest for this edition of BookNotes during Black History Month.
http://www.wbjc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/BOOKNOTES-Black-History-Month.mp3Frederick Douglass
By Robert Hayden
When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful
and terrible thing, needful to man as air,
usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all,
when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole,
reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more
than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:
this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro
beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world
where none is lonely, none hunted, alien,
this man, superb in love and logic, this man
shall be remembered. Oh, not with statues’ rhetoric,
not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone,
but with the lives grown out of his life, the lives
fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing.
Robert Hayden, “Frederick Douglass” from Collected Poems of Robert Hayden, edited by Frederick Glaysher. Copyright © 1966 by Robert Hayden. Reprinted with the permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.
Source:The Collected Poems of Robert Hayden (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1966)
DivaDaisy GoodwinThe Wharton PlotMariah FredericksThe Queen of Sugar HillReShonda TateThis Is the Honey:An Anthology of Contemporary Black PoetsEdited by Kwame AlexanderThe Showman:Inside the Invasion That Shook the Worldand Made a Leader of Volodymyr ZelenskySimon Shusterhttp://www.wbjc.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/BNR-January-2024.mp3
Since 2015, BMore Art has been the go-to magazine for arts and culture in Baltimore. Now, they are out with their first full-length book, City of Artists, highlighting personal reflections and portfolios from the city’s writers and artists. I spoke to BMore Arts Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Cara Ober.
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AbsolutionAlice McDermottHomicide: The Graphic Novel Part IIDavid SimonIllustrated by Philippe SquarzoniBecoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American SongJudith TickOath and Honor: A Memoir and a WarningLiz Cheneyhttp://www.wbjc.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/BNR-December-2023.mp3
J. Wynn Rousuck, theater critic at WYPR and former theater critic at The Baltimore Sun, is out with her first novel, Please Write, from Bancroft Press. After all these years, it was a pleasure to talk to her in person.
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The year is 2023, and the United States has collapsed into a second civil war. In her debut novel, writer and editor Christine Grillo asks how we can make a full, wonderfully ordinary life when the whole mad world is clattering down around us.
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Tom Lake Ann Patchett August Wilson: A Life Patti Hartigan Homicide Philippe Squarzoni Based on the book by David Simon Booker Longlist 2023 Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ (Nigerian) A Spell of Good Things (Canongate) Sebastian Barry (Irish) Old God’s Time (Faber & Faber) Sarah Bernstein (Canadian) Study for Obedience (Granta Books) Jonathan Escoffery (American) If I […]
Jennifer Homans is a prize-winning author, historian, and dance critic for The New Yorker who has brought her personal and professional experience to the biography, Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century. It was a pleasure to speak with Jennifer via Zoom.
Crook Manifesto Colson Whitehead Prom Mom Laura Lippman Thunderclap A memoir of art and life & sudden death Laura Cumming
Following on from her prize-winning novel in short stories, The Balcony, Jane Delury has just released her second book, Hedge, about a strong and creative woman at an emotional cross-roads in her life.
The Wind Knows My Name Isabel Allende Pageboy: A Memoir Elliot Page August Blue Deborah Levy Mozart in Motion: His Work and His World in Pieces Patrick Mackie
Janet Horvath is the former associate principal cello of the Minnesota Orchestra, and she is the daughter of two professional musicians who were Holocaust survivors. She recounts their story, and her link to it, in The Cello Still Sings — A Generational Story of the Holocaust and of the Transformative Power of Music.
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King: A LifeJonathan EigRogue JusticeStacy AbramsThe Making of Another Major Motion Picture MasterpieceTom Hankshttp://www.wbjc.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/BNR-May-2023.mp3
The science of neuroaesthetics offers proof for how our brains and bodies transform when we participate in the artsSusan Magsamen and Ivy Ross are co-authors of The New York Times Bestseller, Your Brain on Art: HOW THE ARTS TRANSFORM US. Here, Susan talks about the ways we can use arts creatively to benefit our lives.
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Romantic ComedyCurtis SittenfeldSymphony of SecretsBrendan SlocumbChitaChita Rivera with Patrick PachecoYou Could Make This Place BeautifulMaggie Smithhttp://www.wbjc.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/BNR-April-2023.mp3
“Always be a poet, even in prose.”
April is Poetry Month and my guest is educator, speaker, facilitator, poet, and writer, Judy Sorum Brown, whose work encompasses both poetry and prose.
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The Baltimore Fine Art Print Fair, featuring twenty galleries and print publishers from across the US, returns for a second edition at the Baltimore Innovation Center in Pigtown the weekend of March 30–April 2. I spoke with curator, Ann Shafer.
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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and TomorrowGabrielle ZevinHang the MoonJeannette WallsThe Climate Book: The Facts and the SolutionsGreta ThunbergThe Real Work: On the Mystery of MasteryAdam Gopnik The Wife of Bath:* A Biography*Marion Turnerhttp://www.wbjc.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/BNR-March-2023.mp3
“I see this issue as a mending, turning trauma and pain into art . . . It is the process of creating that heals us.”Christine Lincoln, Guest Editor It’s been almost seven years since BookNotes caught up with Passager the local, independent literary press dedicated to older writers. So, I invited Founding Editor Kendra Kopelke back to the studio to talk about their current poetry contest and their latest issue.
2023 Winter Issue Zoom LaunchSUNDAY, MARCH 26, 2 PM EDTRegister here
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Victory CitySalman RushdieA Mystery of Mysteries: The Death and Life of Edgar Allan PoeMark DawidziakWhat Napoleon Could Not DoDK NnuroBLK ARTThe Audacious Legacy of Black Artists and Models in Western Art Zaria Warehttp://www.wbjc.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/BNR-February-2023.mp3
At the start of Black History Month, we honor a towering figure in the abolitionist movement, William Still — not to be confused with the Dean of African American composers, William Grant Still. Historian at Towson University, Andrew K. Diemer, talks about his William Still biography, Vigilance.
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Seasonal WorkLaura LippmanOne: Simple One-pan WondersJamie OliverMASTER SLAVE HUSBAND WIFEAn Epic Journey from Slavery to FreedomIlyon WooA Message From UkraineVolodymyr Zelenskyhttp://www.wbjc.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/BNR-January-2023.mp3
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born on Tuesday, January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, GA, and in 2023, we mark MLK Day on Monday, January 16. To talk about the legacy of his words, the guest on BookNotes this month is Marilyn Nelson, award-winning poet and author or translator of more than 20 books and chapbooks for adults and children
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The Jeffersonians:The Visionary Presidencies of Jefferson, Madison, and MonroeKevin GutzmanThe Tudors in Love:Passion and Politics in the Age of England’s Most Famous DynastySarah GristwoodStella MarisCormac McCarthyA Book of DaysPatti Smithhttp://www.wbjc.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/BNR-December.mp3
Anthony Moll is the winner of the 2022 Jean Feldman Poetry Prize from the Washington Writers’ Publishing House for You Cannot Save Here. I spoke to them about this collection of poems exploring how we live when each day feels as if the world is ending.
Egypt’s Golden Couple: When Akhenaten and Nefertiti Were Gods on Earth John Coleman Darnell & Colleen Manassa Darnell The Queen: Her Life Andrew Morton The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times Michelle Obama We Are the Light Matthew Quick Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing Matthew Perry
The French Revolution is celebrated as a founding moment of modern representative government. But in her book Last Revolutionaries: The Conspiracy Trial of Gracchus Babeuf and the Equals Laura Mason, a teaching professor in history at Johns Hopkins University, explains how an elected government’s assault on popular democracy and social justice destroyed the republic, and […]
DEMON COPPERHEAD BARBARA KINGSOLVER LIBERATION DAY GEORGE SAUNDERS OUR MISSING HEARTS CELESTE NG THE PASSENGER CORMAC McCARTHY THE LAST CHAIR JOHN IRVING AND THERE WAS LIGHT: ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND THE AMERICAN STRUGGLE JON MEACHAM THE REVOLUTIONARY SAMUEL ADAMS STACY SCHIFF MADLY, DEEPLY THE DIARIES OF ALAN RICKMAN THE EXTRAORDINARY LIFE OF AN ORDINARY MAN, A […]
Brendan Slocumb is a Baltimore-Washington area violinist and teacher. He has now turned his talents to writing, and his debut novel The Violin Conspiracy has been published by Penguin Random House. As a prelude to our extended discussion in the Wheeler Room at The Enoch Pratt Free Libary on Cathedral Street on Wednesday, October 26 at […]
LUCY BY THE SEA ELIZABETH STROUT LESSONS IAN McEWAN THE MARRIAGE PORTRAIT MAGGIE O’FARRELL MARPLE: TWELVE NEW MYSTERIES VARIOUS AUTHORS
Since 1989, all American Presidents have given a Presidential Proclamation to mark Hispanic Heritage Month, from September 15 through October 15, recognizing the contributions and influence of LatinX Americans to the history, culture, and achievements of the United States. Puerto Rican co-owner of Snug Books, Emanual Figuaroa, makes his contribution through books.
SALMAN RUSHDIE THE LAST WHITE MAN MOHSIN HAMID GLORY NOVIOLET BULAWAYO OH WILLIAM! ELIZABETH STROUT BOOTH KAREN JOY FOWLER
The 13th novel of spy craft and international intrigue by former foreign correspondent for the Baltimore Sun, Dan Fesperman, is called Winter Work, and it’s set during the chaotic first months after the Berlin Wall came down.
JULY 2022 BOOKNOTES REVIEW LINEUP Joan A Novel of Joan of Arc Katherine J. Chen Agent Josephine American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy Damien Lewis James Patterson by James Patterson The Stories of My Life Rebel with a Clause Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian Ellen Jovin
JUNE 2022 BOOKNOTES REVIEW LINEUP BLACK BOY SMILE: A MEMOIR IN MOMENTS D. WATKINS THE VIOLIN CONSPIRACY BRENDAN SLOCUMB LOST & FOUND KATHERYN SCHULZ I WAS BETTER LAST NIGHT HARVEY FIERSTEIN
Juneteenth—June Nineteenth—will be observed as a public holiday for the second year on Monday, June 20th. Award-winning poet, Brian Donnell James, shares thoughts on how poetry contributes to this commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States. “Sweet Tones, Somber Tones” Sweet tones,…Somber tones in the night sky Me all alone with […]
MAY 2022 BOOKNOTES REVIEW LINEUP THE NETANYAHUS JOSHUA COHEN INVISIBLE CHILD poverty, survival & hope in an american city ANDREA ELLIOTT THE TRAYVON GENERATION ELIZABETH ALEXANDER HAPPY-GO-LUCKY DAVID SEDARIS LIARMOUTH JOHN WATERS
Since the Covid-19 pandemic, literary events have nearly disappeared. The Lost Weekend—hosted by Baltimore independent bookstore Greedy Reads in partnership with production friends The Stables—is reigniting the spark by bringing together the best of Baltimore’s literary voices and creative talent with the city’s most celebrated food and drinks vendors, May 13—15. I spoke with Greedy Reads […]
April 2022 BookNotes Review Lineup Finding Me Viola Davis Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life Delia Ephron The Candy House Jennifer Egan French Braid Anne Tyler
Apprentice House Press will release the new novel by Baltimore writer, Eric D. Goodman, on Tuesday, April 17th. He talks here about this part romantic comedy/part buddy novel.
March 2022 BookNotes Review line-up Recitatif A STORY By Toni Morrison Introduction by Zadie Smith Time is a Mother Ocean Vuong Burning Questions ESSAYS AND OCCASIONAL PIECES, 2004 TO 2021 By Margaret Atwood
As the son of Irish immigrants, the poet, writer, and musician Terence Patrick Winch has been part of Irish-American cultural life, with his work sometimes taking its subject matter from his upbringing in a Bronx immigrant neighborhood. Here, he shares some of the words and traditions of that cultural life. P R A Y E R […]
Another jewel in the crown of indie bookstores in the Baltimore area opened up in Northeast Baltimore just last November. They are Booknotes underwriters, Snug Books, co-owned by Katie Beltz and Emanuel Figueroa, who are life partners as well as being business partners. It was a pleasure to talk to them about their vision.
With Martin Luther King Jr. Day coming up on January 17th, poet, writer, and literary activist. E. Ethelbert Miller, explores the way that Dr. King’s life and poetic speeches have influenced American poetry. LOOK AT THAT GIRL Look at that girl shake that thing, We can’t all be Martin Luther King. […]
Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday are behind us, and the season of goodwill is here! I spoke with Emily Miller, Manager at Greedy Reads, about her excitement list. Emily’s pick.
Marking Veterans Days this month, the guest for November’s edition of Booknotes is Rafe Posey, talking about his debut novel The Stars We Share.
In honor of World Food Day, sponsored by the United Nations and commemorated annually on October 16th, the guest on Booknotes this month is poet, Hiram Larew, founder of Poetry X Hunger.
Woodhall Press is an independent publisher operating (mainly) out of Connecticut. I spoke with CEO, David LeGere, and COO, Matthew Winkler, about the landscape for indie presses in the current publishing climate.
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“Public health saved your life today— you just don’t know it” — Leana Wen
Leana Wen’s book Lifelines is part memoir, part celebration of public health—and it’s altogether timely.
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Jessica Anya Blau‘s fifth novel is a coming-of-age story set in Baltimore. The author is as much of a delight as her protagonist.
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Cover image courtesy of the Maryland Historical Society
While Americans have been deeply absorbed with the topic of immigration for generations, emigration from the United States has been almost entirely ignored. A new book by Alan Marcus examines the largest organized group of white Americans ever to emigrate from the United States voluntarily.
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Michelle Madow, who grew up in Maryland and now makes her home in Florida, is a bestselling author of fast-paced, young adult fantasy novels. She has realized her dream of making a career as a full-time writer by self-publishing the multiple books she puts out a year. She still has a 410 phone number, and I caught up with her in Florida.
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